Keyham is a Victorian-built area of

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

in the English county of

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

. It was built to provide dense cheap housing just outside the wall of HM Dockyard Devonport for the thousands of civilian workmen.

History

1900s: Early History

In the early-19th century, Devonport Dockyard was smaller than now; it was enlarged mid-century by Keyham Steam Yard - Keyham at that period was a suburb of Devonport itself. Keyham Steam Yard was one of the locations for the first trials of the Fairbairn patent crane. The development of housing was so rapid that HMS ''Hotspur'', later renamed HMS ''Monmouth'', was provided as a chapel ship for Roman Catholic services until the Roman Catholic Church of Our Most Holy Redeemer was built in 1901. That church was destroyed by fire following a bombing raid in 1941 and it was rebuilt in 1954.

2021: Plymouth Shooting

On 12 August 2021, a mass shooting occurred in the area, where a gunman, identified as 22-year-old Jake Davison, killed five people and injured two others, before killing himself. His motive remains undetermined, although his online activity made multiple references to the

incel Incel ( ; a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate") is a term associated with an online subculture of mostly male and heterosexual people who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. They ofte ...

subculture. An inquest jury found the 5 people were "unlawfully killed" due to a "catastrophic failure" by

Devon and Cornwall Police Devon and Cornwall Police is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial counties of Devon and Cornwall (including the Isles of Scilly) in South West England. The force serves approximately 1.8 million people over an ...

2024: WWII Bomb

On Tuesday 20 February 2024, a 500kg bomb was discovered in a back garden in Keyham. An area of 309 metres around the device was evacuated and cordoned off. The

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

said that it was "one of the largest peacetime evacuations since the second world war" An

emergency alert An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

was sent to residents in Plymouth around 12pm on Friday 23 February advising more evacuations as the bomb disposal teams prepared to move the device to the

Torpoint Ferry The Torpoint Ferry is a car and pedestrian chain ferry connecting the A374 which crosses the Hamoaze, a stretch of water at the mouth of the River Tamar, between Devonport in Plymouth and Torpoint in Cornwall. The service was established in 1 ...

slipway to be disposed of at sea. During the incident, thousands of residents that live inside the cordon were evacuated.

References

Suburbs of Plymouth, Devon {{devon-geo-stub